Re: Selective output of half a tag?

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On Tuesday 11 June 2002 03:50, Graham Ashton wrote:
> <xsl:if test="self::foo">
>       <mytag>
>     </xsl:if>
>     <xsl:apply-templates/>
>     <xsl:if test="count(following-sibling::foo)=0">
>       </mytag>
>     </xsl:if>

Yes, that doesn't work because it is not well-formed.

Basically, there are three ways you can do this (depending a little on what 
you're trying to do):

If all you need to do is dynamically change the name of the tag, then 
<xsl:element> can help you out:

<xsl:element name="{$the-tag-name}">
  <!-- assuming "the-tag-name" is a variable -->
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:element>

If you need to selectively output or not output the entire tag, then you need 
something like this:

<xsl:choose>
  <xsl:when test="something">
    <mytag>
      <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </mytag>
  </xsl:when>
  <xsl:otherwise>
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

As you might notice, the above basically has two possible outputs, and each 
choice has its own copy of <xsl:apply-templates/>.  You've already done the 
hard part of putting the common code in (an)other template(s).  If what you 
had was more than a single command inside of <mytag/>, then you would 
probably want to move the common code to a named template and only copy the 
<xsl:call-template/> inside <mytag/> and <xsl:otherwise/>.


The final and most despised option is disable-output-escaping.  This is the 
lazy way out, but it follows your idea of telling the processor to treat 
"<mytag>" as text.  You run two risks: (1) you might end up outputting 
not-well-formed XML, and (2) this won't work with all processors or 
installations.

<xsl:if test="something">
  <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;mytag></xsl:text>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
<xsl:if test="something-else">
  <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&lt;/mytag></xsl:text>
</xsl:if>

HTH

- -- 
Peter Davis
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